Hartley Winterbottom
|actor = Timothy Dalton |status = AWOL |seasons = Season 4 }} Hartley Winterbottom is the identity of Alexei Volkoff, whom was the main antagonist in the first half of Season Four. He was a MI6 scientist on the original Intersect team alongside Stephen Bartowski (Scott Bakula), and is the first Human Intersect. He is portrayed by Timothy Dalton. Sometime ago when working on the Intersect, the CIA assigned him a mission to go undercover. He took the cover of fictitious international arms dealer, Alexei Volkoff. Upon learning this, Stephen uploaded the Intersect into Hartley's head, attempting to aid his cover. Eventually, the Intersect became corrupt, erasing everything that made Hartley, and replacing it with the attributes of his cover identity. Mary Bartowski (Linda Hamilton) was sent into the organization he founded, Volkoff Industries, to ensure his safety. Character Profile Alexei Volkoff was the head and founder of Volkoff Industries, an international arms dealing company whose base of operations is in Moscow, Russia. Volkoff is the reason of Mary Bartowski leaving her family prior to the series as she was assigned by the CIA to bring down his network. In , Chuck flashes on another Volkoff Industries equipment. It revealed Volkoff's profile which states that he is about 5'10 - 6'2 male who speaks Russian, German and English. It also mentioned that he was indicted in New York for his involvement in arms trafficking. The top of the poster claims he is wanted for "Conspiracy to kill United States nationals, to murder, to destroy buildings and property of the United States, and to destroy the national defense utilities of the United States". Personality Volkoff, in his own words, is a hopeless romantic. He enjoys painting, poems, and tends to relax himself to “Requiem: Dies Irae” by Mozart. Volkoff has shown to be deeply caring towards Mary Bartowski, and happens to believe that they are in a relationship. After knowing that Orion was Mary's husband and Chuck's father, he becomes competitive when he was under the illusion that Orion was still alive. He tries his best in earning Mary's love when she protested to him that "Stephen will always be ten times a better man than you", to which he responds that he would bring back Orion's body. Relationship with Mary When Volkoff discovers that Chuck is still alive and escaped the destruction of Stephen's secret base, he assigns Mary to escort three of their best assassins to kill Chuck. He becomes more cautious, without knowing Mary's involvement in helping Chuck's escape, he assumes he had underestimated Chuck. After three of his men were killed and that Mary is missing, he launches a full-on assault with his operatives against the Buy More, knowing that Castle is just underneath it. He demands the CIA and NSA to release Mary, and awkwardly even asks her if they had fed her well. Chuck and Sarah escort her to the Buy More under knowledge of Volkoff being in love with her, where Chuck is later about to be killed by Volkoff. Mary tells him to stop, and finally admits that Chuck is her son. After knowing that, he has Chuck invite him for the family's thanksgiving dinner. Volkoff then joins the Bartowski family's thanksgiving dinner, trying to prove to Mary that "kids love him". After Ellie and Devon leave dinner under a staged hospital emergency call, Sarah and Chuck attempt to arrest Volkoff, only to be surrounded by his men. Mary then has Volkoff at gunpoint, forcing him to let them go, and that she cannot love a man who would threaten her son. He immediately has every one of his operatives to retreat, and leaves with everyone unharmed. In , Volkoff appears to enjoy sending video calls to Mary. At the time, Mary was aiding Sarah in stealing the data from the Hydra network in his office. When Mary received a video call from him, she immediately positions herself in the dark corner of the office and answers the call. He even smooches towards the phone during a video call with her. Volkoff also appears to be deeply in love with Mary. Even after finding out later in the season that she was always in deep cover in his organization to find the Hydra, he still treats her well and attempts to win her love by volunteering in the killing of Orion, who unbeknownst to him, was actually Chuck all along that had been threatening him with sudden computer hackings in his headquarters. Series Development First appearing in , Chuck meets him under the assumed name of Gregory Tuttle, he is presented as Frost's enthusiastic, if bumbling and completely inexperienced in the matters of field-work, MI6 handler. With Chuck's assistance, Tuttle escapes Volkoff's agents and helps Chuck recover data that would clear Mary and prove she has been in deep cover to bring down his organization. However, after being apparently wounded in a gunfight while recovering the disks, Tuttle reveals himself as Volkoff and that the entire operation was a plan to locate and destroy Stephen's intelligence. He attempted to kill Chuck and Sarah in the explosion that destroyed Stephen's work, but was unwittingly betrayed by Mary, who left a means for them to escape. Later in the season, Volkoff is alone in his headquarters, where the entire building went through a power failure, and when he accesses the computer network in his office, a message tells him that "I want my wife back". He then begins to think that Orion is still alive. This act had caused him to panic greatly, as he immediately goes onto a vessel named The Contessa, where he stored a backup Hydra network in fear of having Orion hack into it. Chuck, Sarah, Morgan and Mary attempted to access the Hydra network on his vessel, but they were later captured, where Volkoff is slightly disgusted by Mary's betrayal. Despite her betrayal, he still loves her, and has her to look at the interface of his network, where he received a new message from Orion, telling them to meet at Stephen's house. When Volkoff arrives, he finds out that it was Chuck all along who staged the messages on Volkoff's networks, pretending to be Orion. However, Chuck later managed to have Volkoff accidentally give out the password to his network, it was instantly received in Orion's secret computers hidden in the house, where the system began downloading the Hydra. When he realizes his mistake, he admits that Chuck cannot leave the house as he has his operatives surrounding the area. Chuck answers the knock on the door to the house, revealing General Beckman herself and various soldiers awaiting outside the compartment to arrest Volkoff. Before departing to prison, he says to Chuck "Tell your mom to come visit me". Hydra Network Main article: Hydra Network When General Beckman aided Sarah's dedication into helping her rescue Chuck's mom, Beckman had to have her arrested for treason, where Volkoff gladly welcomes and embraces Sarah's presence in his organization. Sarah immediately grew onto Volkoff's trust and has possibly earned as much respect as Mary. As Sarah goes into deep cover into Volkoff Industries, she discovers that Volkoff secretly monitors his agents and controls their actions through a network, called the Hydra. Mary however appears to have been aware of the network, as she has always taken extreme caution while on weapons transactions, and has shot Chuck in the past to avoid suspicion on her true affiliation. Volkoff then had Sarah assigned on a mission to break his former bodyguard Yuri Gobrienko from federal prison. When Yuri returns to Volkoff's headquarters, Volkoff kills him and begins extracting his eyeball, where he explains to both Sarah and Mary that the Hydra network is actually Yuri's fake eyeball. Volkoff begins uploading all of the data in the Hydra onto a vessel called The Contessa. After the upload was finished, he immediately destroyed the eyeball, where Mary secretly picked up the fragments of the device and had Sarah pass it onto Casey. Mary and Sarah were later brought to The Contessa, where Volkoff would be staying with them there under fear that Orion is still alive, after previously encountering several hackings in his Hydra network in his office. Later, Chuck and Morgan are aboard and began searching for the network, where they team up with Sarah and Mary to enter the database hidden in the ship. After reaching the network, Chuck began tampering with the machines, which causes Volkoff to later find a message in the Hydra interface aboard the ship that tells him to meet with Orion at Stephen's house. Heiress Main article: Vivian Volkoff In the episode , it is revealed that Volkoff's daughter Vivian (Lauren Cohan) who unbeknownst to her, has been given a necklace that would eventually lead her to his office, where he had left her his bank account card from the First Bank of Macau - a notorious criminal funding bank. To further progress his successor into his organization, his lawyer Mr. Riley (guest star Ray Wise) convinces her that she was unknowingly trained her whole life for the job. Riley visits her once more at the First Bank of Macau, convincing her that the CIA is only using her to get to her father's secrets. Although she refuses her position as his successor at first, she begins to adapt to it after being an asset to Team Bartowski. The CIA refuses to give in to her request to see her father at prison despite helping Team Bartowski twice in infiltrating the criminal bank. After this, she finally makes her decision, and is slowly becoming the head of Volkoff Industries. Hartley Winterbottom In , it was reveled that Agent X is the codename of Hartley Winterbottom and was a MI6 scientist, and the first human Intersect. The episode also revealed that he had maintained a close friendship with Stephen Bartowski (codename Orion). But when the Intersect malfunctioned, Hartley began believing he was actually his cover identity; Alexei Volkoff, and became an actual international arms dealer. Orion originally built the Intersect to assist Hartley into going undercover in an arms dealing organization as Alexei Vokoff. The Intersect gave Hartley a new identity and a different personality. Slowly corrupting his mind, he began losing all memories of his life when he was Hartley, and assumed that Agent X was a threat to the organization he works with. Sometime afterward, Volkoff founded Volkoff Industries and CIA agent Mary Bartowski was sent undercover by Orion into his organization to accompany him as well as to fix Orion's mistake. Prior to the discovery of the identity of Agent X, in the episode , his daughter Vivian; now the head of the organization, has ordered a death warrant on Agent X to gain a higher respect by completing what she thought her father could never do. In "Chuck Versus the Cliffhanger" when Vollkoff has the Intersect taken out of him, he almost instantly becomes a kind man, basicly the exact opposite of Alexi Volkoff. Instead of the mean and fearless Vollkoff, he becomes a person who is nice, helpful and a slight worrier. He also seems to lose his love for Mary. He is also the person who convinces his daughter, Vivian Vollkoff, that she is not evil. He seems to be very generous, even giving Chuck and Sarah all of his assets and Volkoff Industries as a wedding gift. Trivia * Volkoff's profile seen on Chuck's flash in , where he is described as a 6'2 male is actually Timothy Dalton's size. * When Volkoff points a gun at Chuck at the end of the episode , he flicks around with the back of his handgun, an obvious reference to Timothy Dalton's James Bond. Category:Characters Category:Volkoff's Agents Category:Season Four Main Characters Category:Intersect